


Asking the Question

by AddyEZ



Series: All the Questions Jack Had to Ask [2]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Crutchie Needs to Knock Some Sense Into Jack, Crying, F/M, Gen, Hugging, Marriage Blessing, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 18:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AddyEZ/pseuds/AddyEZ
Summary: Jack Kelly didn’t get Pulitzer’s blessing to marry Katherine, but who says that will stop him? Why would he be nervous?Well... maybe he’s a little nervous.





	Asking the Question

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my other Newsies fic, “The Question Before the Question”. You don’t need to read that to understand this, but I’d love it if you did! Enjoy!!!

If Jack thought asking Pulitzer for his blessing was nerve wracking, this was a whole new level. Closer to how he’d feel if he jumped off a cliff.

If Pulitzer said no, he could laugh it off. Buy a ring, find Katherine, and pop the question anyways.

And Pulitzer did say no, and Jack had laughed it off and bought the ring anyways. If Katherine said no, however,… it was game over.

That’s why he sat on the rigid chair in the middle of his apartment, staring at the ring box in his hand, trying to summon up his courage. He’d finally used up the old fund that was supposed to send him to Santa Fe.. He’d been saving it since he was a little boy, since his mother dropped a penny in an old jar. _“Well Jackie boy,”_ she’d said. _If we can get enough, we’ll go to Santa Fe and never come back_ . Jack sighed.   _Well, now I’ve really sunk myself in a hole_ , he deadpanned to himself. _Ace was the only thing keeping me here. And now if she don’t want me, I’se got no way ta leave._

“Jack!” Race came waltzing into the apartment. He had stopped being a newsie only a few months after Jack, and now did odd jobs around Sheepshead Races. It didn’t pay well, but it let him have a job while betting, which did pay him well. Race chattered as he hung up his scruffy jacket. “Amazing day at the races… this horse was a pretty good shot, everyone thought so, but yesterday, at the races, she landed a jump weird and I bet on the supposed runner up and she made gold! I’se made a week’s worth!” He collapsed in the chair opposite of Jack, smirk on his face. “I’se thinkin bout headin out tonight now, find me a pretty goil. You’se in?”

Jack sighed and rubbed his temple, trying to discourage the building headache. “Race. What part of a _committed relationship_ do you not understand?” He glared at Race playfully. “It means I don’t sleep around in the Bowery.”

“Hey, just cause you grew up don’t mean I’se have to.” He popped the cigar out of his mouth. “When you’se single, the woild is yer erster.”

“Oyster, Race. How many times do we’s have ta tell ya?” Crutchie came out of the bedroom. “It makes ya sound like an idiot.”

“Takes one ta know one,” Race sneered as he stood up. “I’se gonna head over Jacobi’s, find someone who ain't so stuck up.” With a tip of his hat, Race was gone.

Crutchie sat down next to Jack, who had sighed and stared down at the box broodily. “You asked her yet?” Crutchie placed his crutch against the wall.

“No,” Jack scoffed. “Crutchie, she’s the most important thing in my life. She’s the ace up my sleeve, what’s keeping me rooted here, what keeps me sane and happy. By asking her ta marry me, I’se askin’ if she feels the same about me. If she says no…”

“Why would she say no?” Crutchie asked patiently.

“Cause her pa said no!” Jack gripped the box tighter. “If she married me, she’d get a wedding in a courthouse and shunned from her family. She could have so much more, she deserves so much more. She could live in one of dem rich houses and have all da fancy clothes and anything any goil could ever want.” Jack took a deep breath. “Some days I’se feels selfish for loving her. Because I knows someone else out der could give her everything I can’t. And if I let her go-“

Suddenly, Jack was slapped upside the head. “Ouch! Jeez Crutchie, what was that for?”

“For you’se being an idiot. I know Kat is your goil, but she’s my best friend. She loves you, more than she could eva’ love a fancy house or rich clothes or good food or whatever pompous jerks are out there. You’d be selfish, she’d hate you, for trying to control her life, by pushing her towards those options. That goil deserves all the options. Propose to her. Give her the option of _you_.”

Jack mumbled something into his hands and Crutchie leaned forward to catch it. “What’d you say Jackie-boy?”

Jack glared at Crutchie. “What if I’se ain’t good enough for her? I’se wasn’t good enough for my folks, I’se sold out the newsies… why would she be different?”

Crutchie sighed, grabbing Jack’s shoulder and giving it a small shake. “All the newsies have forgiven you for that Jack. You’s were in a bad spot and you did what you thoughts was best. Stop beating yourself up. And Kath is different because she’s _different_. The Jack Kelly I first met? He’d try a girl once or twice, say she was fine and moved onta the next in a week. Yet you stuck with Kath for a long while now. Don’t that already make her different?”

Jack groaned as his head fell into his hand. “Damn it Crutchie,” he mumbled. “How comes you’s always right?” Without another word, Jack stood and hurried out the door.

Crutchie sat their grinning. “Go get her Cowboy.” He sat there in silent retrospection for a few minutes before he grabbed his jacket and left. _His_ girlfriend was expecting him for dinner.

Meanwhile, Jack hurried up the stairs to Katherine’s apartment door. He paused for a short moment before knocking on the door of the beautiful, smart, independent girl who had given him something to believe in. The rain patterned against the windows and he prepared himself to propose to the girl he never planned on…

 

* * *

 

Katherine sat in the plush chair, tapping her leg impatiently. She sadly hasn’t been able to estrange her family yet, so she was forced to have a weekly tea with her mother after dinner. Usually it was just her mother telling Katherine who was getting married, who was having children, who committed the latest fashion crime, and altogether things that were supposed to make Katherine miss her old life and make her want to come home.

And some days it was hard, the days when she had other expenses to cover and had to skimp on her food fund for the week, or when she saw the newsies (who she still frequently visited) and knew she couldn’t give them everything they needed and wanted and deserved, or when her favorite dress (the purple one she kissed Jack for the first time in) had a tear and she knew she couldn’t pay for a seamstress to fix it that month.  When she had a hard time living on her own, and she couldn’t help scrunching her nose at the food or as she struggled bathing herself or doing her buttons or keeping her apartment tidy. When her male coworkers belittled her and tried to throw her back at the entertainment pages. She’d consider going home to her old, easy lifestyle.

But then she sees Jack. Either sitting on his fire escape looking west, or his hands covered in charcoal or paint or ink, eyes focused on his art. Him setting aside as much of his salary as he could so he could buy a paper from every newsboy he saw (she couldn’t blame him… she did the same). Him throwing a little newsie over his shoulder as he tickled them. Him taking Race’s money and hiding it so he could stop betting. Him massaging Crutchie’s leg when the weather got cold. His smirk and his accent. His constant touches, on her waist, her shoulder. The hopeful look in his eyes when he talked about the future. And when she saw all those things, she knew she could live far worse and still not change a thing as long as she had Jack Kelly.

“Katherine!”

Her head jerked up to look at her mother’s pinched in face. Her mother frowned in displeasure. “Honestly Katherine, please pay attention. You remember your friend, Bill? He’ll be marrying Millicent, she’s a lovely girl. Their engagement party is soon, I know your… friend, Jack doesn’t like parties, but perhaps you and Darcy could go-”

“Mother, I’ve explained this before.” Katherine sighed, preparing herself for the same old speech. “Jack and I are courting. He’s more than a friend to me. He’s offered to go to any parties I’m invited to, it’s me who doesn’t want to go. He’s put in a lot of effort to win you and Father over, and if you listened to him, I think you’d find out that he’s someone special.”

Her mother snorted. “Oh, I have seen what he calls effort. Showing up here unexpected, interrupting our breakfast just to ask your father for his blessing.”

“Jack asked Father for his blessing?” Katherine’s eyes widened in shock.

“And did a rather awful job at it to.” Her mother daintily sipped her tea. “Ms. Wilson said she heard her husband speaking on the phone with your father and she said your father said that Jack said that, ‘He was going to marry her anyways’, now what kind of manners is-”

Katherine leapt out of her seat. “Jack is going to propose? Oh my goodness!” she laughed, astonished. “Why, I should- I don’t even know what to do! Mother,” she collapsed onto the chair, her hands folded and attention held rapt on her mother. “How did you feel when Father proposed to you?”

Her mother looked at her annoyed, but as the minutes passed she looked at her lap as the look washed from her face. In a strained voice, she said, “It was an arranged marriage. He had just gotten back from the war, our parents wanted us wed and he proposed after we knew each other a week.” Her mother sighed. “I’d always dreamed of a man who would come and sweep me off my feet, who would make me smile just thinking about him. But I work with the hand I’m dealt. And this is a very good hand, even if it’s not the one that makes me feel like I’m winning.”

Her mother stood up and took Katherine’s hands in her own. They stood only inches apart, and Katherine looked at her mother. Really looked. Her mother’s resilient gray eyes, her thinning auburn hair pulled back gracefully into a bun, her slight figure and her quiet resignation, her silent strength. “That Jack Kelly boy, he may not have been given the best hand in life, not like you got,” she said quietly. “But if you two put your hands together… you could make something perfect.” She stood up straighter. “I know that this technically means nothing, but if it means anything to you and Jack, _I’d_ bless your marriage.”

Katherine had no words. She had nothing to say except to wrap her arms around her mother.

 

* * *

 

Jack knocked on Katherine’s door. He stood there, silent for a moment. His heart sank. He knew that Katherine spent this night at her parent’s house, but she was always back by now. He shifted anxiously as he stared at the door. He tried one more time, but there was no response. Discouraged, he turned, ready to give up.

Then he saw her.

Her skirt was damp and she was shaking slightly. Her face was pale, yet her cheeks flushed red, as if she’d been running in the rain. Her auburn curls hung limp and her delicate, ink stained hands pushed her hair away from her chocolate eyes. She stared at him, and he couldn’t describe the expression in her eyes if he was given a thousand words. For once, he didn’t have the urge to grab a pencil to draw her, he knew it would fall short.

He felt himself dropping to one knee as memories of them flashed through his head. Him waving at her and drawing her in Medda’s theater. Them throwing papers at each other at the start of the strike. Her face pulling him out of his depression after Crutchie was arrested. Them holding each other on the fire escape. Memories flew through his head as he realized, for once, he didn’t have words for a beautiful lady. _Not just any lady_ , his brain provided. _She’s my lady_.

He dared to look up at her, at her slightly parted mouth gaping in awe at the open ring box clutched in his hands. The ring was a small simple diamond attached to a gold band, but she would understand it cost him almost everything to get her that. “Ace-” he choked out before emotion filled him and he dropped his eyes to the uneven wood planks.

He felt soft hands grab his own and looked up to see Katherine kneeling with him. “Jack Kelly,” she said softly, her voice full of awe for him. “Can I marry you?”

With a sob, Jack grabbed the ring and carefully slid it on her finger. She looked at him, tears filling her eyes as she launched herself into his chest.

There they lay, in the middle of an apartment hallway, holding each other and sobbing. Not from sadness, but from the overwhelming love for one another and the knowledge that whatever came next, they’d have each other.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I originally was going to have Katherine have a fall out with her mother and have her run to Medda, but the story has a mind of it’s own. Hope you enjoyed, please leave reviews and kudos!


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